It’s really easy – make records filled with good music, and people will love you. They’ll want to watch you perform. They’ll make you RICH because they want to buy anything an everything you produce. Sounds like a pretty good business plan to me. No reason to screw with that model right?
Wrong – we see it time and time again (U2, Moby, and most recently, the Dixie Chicks). These people whose music I enjoy so much, turn around and give me the finger with their political positions and posturing. It drives me crazy, this stuff. Raging egos, all of ’em. And when you hear them talk, most end up sounding like they all successfully completed the 8th grade, and then decided they’d had enough. Do they honestly think that the fans who come to watch their concerts give a wit about the pablum they puke on stage? Hell no, they want to hear the music. In fact, they pay HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS to hear it. Now, they may applaud unconsciously when Bono tells them to feed the hungry, but do they rush right out after the event and run to the quickie mart to buy a bag of groceries for the local food shelter. Again, hell no. It’s in one ear and out the other. A waste of time is what it is.
Bruce, John, Michael, Bonnie, Eddie, and Jackson – stop, please for the love of pete, STOP with this social consciousness crap. Just make your freakin records (eh hem, GOOD freakin records) and we’ll keep buying them. It’s a simple business model that shouldn’t be tinkered with.
UPDATE: There’s hope.